Castle Farms facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Loeb Farms Barn Complex
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 Location in Michigan
Location in the United States
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| Nearest city | Charlevoix, Michigan |
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| Area | 45 acres (18 ha) |
| Built | 1917 |
| Architect | Arthur Heun |
| Architectural style | Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals, Neo-Norman |
| NRHP reference No. | 95001392 |
| Added to NRHP | November 29, 1995 |
Castle Farms is a special place in Charlevoix, Michigan. Today, it is used for many events. It was built in 1918 by Albert Loeb. He was a very important person at Sears, Roebuck and Company. A famous architect named Arthur Heun designed the buildings.
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History of Castle Farms
Albert Loeb built Castle Farms to be a "model farm." This means it was a special farm that showed off the best animals. It also displayed new farm equipment. These tools were sold by his company, Sears. The farm was very large, covering 1600 acres. It included the Loeb family's summer home. There were also houses for workers, fields, and fruit orchards. It had a big complex of barns for animals.
Loeb hired Arthur Heun, an architect from Chicago. Heun designed all the buildings on the farm. This included the farm buildings themselves. While the farm was running, Loeb raised amazing animals. He had prize-winning Holstein-Friesian cows. He also raised Duroc-Jersey hogs and Belgian horses. The farm even started a special mail-order business. They sold high-quality butter, syrup, honey, poultry, and eggs.
Albert Loeb died in 1924. His son, Ernest, kept the farm going for a few years. But in 1927, money problems forced the farm to close.
Castle Farms After the Farm Closed
After the farm stopped working, the buildings stayed with the Loeb family. They were rented out for storage until 1962. Then, a man named John Van Haver bought the property. He was a business executive. He fixed up the buildings and opened them to the public.
In 1969, Arthur and Erwina Reibel bought Castle Farms. During this time, it became a popular place for rock concerts. Many famous bands played there. These included Iron Maiden, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, and The Beach Boys.
In 2001, Linda Mueller bought Castle Farms. She is the current owner. She worked hard to restore the buildings. By 2005, they looked like they did when they were first built. Today, Castle Farms is open all year. It is mostly used for weddings and parties. But it also hosts other festivals and social events. One example is the Charlevoix Renaissance Festival. In 2008, a model railroad was added. It shows a scenic journey through Charlevoix's history.
What Castle Farms Looks Like
The original buildings at Castle Farms were built in 1917 and 1918. There are seven main structures. These include a dairy barn, a horse barn, and a blacksmith's shop. There's also an equipment shed, an ice house, an office, and a cheese shop. All these buildings have walls made from local fieldstone. This stone was gathered right from the area. They have unique roofs, like high hip roofs, conical roofs, or pyramid roofs. The buildings are grouped into two main areas. One is for horses and the other is for dairy cows.
There used to be a chicken coop on the property. It was taken down between 1943 and 1944. The wood from the coop was used to build a small house. This house is on Lake Charlevoix and is still there today.
Main Buildings and Their Layout
The horse barn, its wagon sheds, the ice house, and the office create an open courtyard. This courtyard faces the dairy barn. The blacksmith's shop is next to the barn. It has a forge and a very large chimney.
The horse barn is a long, rectangular building. It has a high hip roof. This roof has dormer windows on both sides. These windows have pointed-arch shapes. The wagon sheds were once open, but now they are enclosed. The icehouse is an eight-sided building with no windows. It stands at one corner of the courtyard. At the next corner is the round office, which has a cone-shaped roof.
A rectangular, one-story building stands between the horse barn and dairy barn areas. This building has a hip roof and was used as a cheese shop. The dairy barn is shaped like a "U." It has a cattle barn and a connected service area. This service area originally had a dairy, a place for workers to sleep, a kitchen, and four round silos. The barn has a high hip-roof section at the bottom of the "U." The sides of the "U" have lower gable roofs. The barn has rows of square-shaped windows. The service wing has an arched entrance. This leads to the courtyard next to the dairy barn.
